Am I the only one who sees a conflict of interest inherent in commingling an activity whose effect is to eradicate brain cells and the memories contained therein with an activity designed to increase the participant's core knowledge?  Oh well, this bar sounds a natural fit for Huntsville, Alabama.

When my daughter was younger I explained it to her thusly:

The benefits of Communism are visible while the costs are largely hidden; the costs of Capitalism/Free Markets are highly visible, while the benefits are largely hidden.

That is the differential ever enjoyed by salesmen of snake oil.

A number of years ago my father-in-law gave his grand-daughter a lovely wooden advent calendar, comprised of 28 compartments, each approx. 2" high by 3" wide.  This heavy-duty calendar lasted for her childhood and will be available for her children and grand-children should the line get that far.  I've no idea whence he got it, but did find interesting results at Amazon by searching for "advent calendar wood".

There is probably no need to delve into what a pain it was to reload the dang thing every year.

Perhaps the radiation exposure is negligible, perhaps not.  Will that matter when the first TSA caused cancer case goes to court?  More importantly, what happens when we get the first claims against the TSA scanner related birth defects?

Remember, it isn't the actual damages done, it is what a jury believes was done.

Matthew Gilley tees up the point I dwell on when considering repeal of the 17th Amendment, and that detail can be covered in two words: Jesse Helms.  Having lived in NC since I first was old enough to vote - the year Helms was first elected to the Senate - I have to say I doubt he gets there by Legislative appointment.  Which might well mean no 1976 Ronald Reagan victory in NC and thus no 1980 Reagan presidency.

Or maybe Helms doesn't leave the Democratic Party, that being his only route to Senatorship.  As Grandfather wondered in Peter & the Wolf: what then?

Oh yes! A wonderful matching of incomparable voice with inimitable Chick Jones animation! We had the VCR when our daughter was young (over 20 years ago) and just about played the cobra out of it.

Hope only appeared on The Mupple Shock the one time, and performed the referenced song in company with the most improbable palomino ever. Notably, for an old-Vaudeville hand, Hope spends the entire show apparently staring goggle-eyed at the muppeteers, obviously amazed at their antics.

One factor I think is under recognized in Rowling's work is how subversively conservative it is. Is there a greater indictment of government "competency" than the Ministry of Magic? And is there a better skewering of the MSM than Rita Skeeter? Worthy of a whole separate discussion, perhaps.

Elimination of the corporate tax, or at very least a great simplification, is a necessary step toward letting businesses manage themselves to maximize profit (maximum profit is achieved when resource efficiency is greatest) rather than managing in accordance with government goals. Further, if government share of GDP hovers at a given point (here acknowledged to be about 19%) then the route to maximizing receipts is through growing GDP fastest, i.e., with minimal government interference or direction.

Wait 'til he watches the Alice Cooper show.

My Beloved Spouse has been (again) running through the Dale series in audio and got up to the Death of **** during the battle of Hogwarts in Deathly Hallows this afternoon. I've dearly wanted to hear the Fry readings but they apparently aren't for sale this side of the Atlantic, and it is hard to justify the expense of a duplicate reading. Great fun, good reads, eh movies. Elmore Leonard was right: few novels readily translate into films. Those that do tend to be heavy on description that can be conveyed visually.

And yeah, looking forward to this one, will hold off until crowds are avoidable, and will withhold judgment on whether splitting it is mere marketing until I see if the finished product justifies it. My guess is that HP&tDH-2 begins with the burial of *****.

There was an article a few weeks ago on what scientists are learning about the contents of seminal fluid (NOT semen.) It seems as if there are various hormones which A) act like chocolate on the female psyche and b) attune a female to a particular male, encouraging her system to reject seminal fluids from other males. So we are apparently biochemically inclined to enjoy long-term committed sexual relationships. Almost enough to make a body think there is a basis besides stodginess in those traditional relationships.

From what my daughter (the organic biochemistry student) has told me, if you Google seminal fluid and hormones you'd learn plenty.

I think the experience of being a parent, of negotiating with toddlers to teens, school teachers and school administrators is valuable, certainly. It would have been better employed had she connected that experience to governance issues.

I do rather doubt that conservatives ought make Ruth Marcus' interpolations of "unstated premises" our lodestone.

What those who mock expression of Faith do is display their own failure to understand what is being done; they are like the "Evil Son" in the Passover Haggadah. Screw 'em.

And Andrew, it is well documented that the Yankees fan is Mr. Applegate, as revealed in both the play and Douglas Wallop's original novel (a pretty good religious tract, by the way.)

I don't know as the questioner was conservative or that the question was considered anything but a lobbed softball for the Immaculate One to drive into the left-field bleachers. They thought this was just so easy that it never occurred to anyone there it might reveal something significant about Obama.

For the baseball fan, John R. Tunis' The Kid From Thompkinsville (and keep buying if that one takes.) Set in the late 1930s It may be a bit dated but the issues addressed haven't changed. Lawrence Ritter's The Glory Of Their Times, a verbal history of Baseball and America of a century ago, tells such tales as Germany Schaefer stealing first base.

Robert Heinlein's juveniles hold up pretty well if the boys don't fall about laughing over astrogators using slide rules. Try Have Spacesuit, Will Travel or Citizen Of The Galaxy, RAH's take on Kim.

Bill Bryson's A Short History Of Nearly Everything covers the history of the Scientific Method and how we got from Newton to Hawkings. A secondary virtue is its demonstration that every fifty years seems to reveal that 75% of what we thought was settled science is inadequate or just plain wrong.

Susan Cooper's The Dark Is Rising is a very enjoyable trip through elements of the mythology of Britain, as is Lloyd Alexander's Chronicles of Prydain. Sterling North's Rascal relates a year (1918) in his childhood during which he raised a baby raccoon named "Rascal." Wonderful evocation of America on the home front and boyhood.